


Entrika

by Lord_of_the_Snakes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Horror, Implied Sexual Content, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 06:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16424570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lord_of_the_Snakes/pseuds/Lord_of_the_Snakes
Summary: "You will make me whole again."





	Entrika

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misanthropist_bonbon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropist_bonbon/gifts).



In a world of monsters and gods, Harry was mortal. He was vulnerable flesh and faulty plasma; incapable of saving the ones who mattered most. Unable to do anything to stop the sick from spreading through their bodies. 

He could only watch them pass on.

This house, it held the stench of illness. It clogged the air, lingering in the same manner a dog did to its own vomit. Feeding upon its spilt fluids and spreading further.

Illness, he thought, was a curse. What else could it be when magic could remake anything? It left pallor and reek in its wake, stealing breath from the victims.

Stealing life from the infected.

He hated to see his parents like this. Hated to see the color sap out of them as disease fed on their souls and corroded their flesh. 

He hated to hear them wheezing, their lungs failing them at last. He hated to touch their clammy flesh, the coldness too similar to dead bodies. 

He hated the pity in the villager’s eyes, the whispers that followed him everywhere. 

The lip service the doctors gave would do nothing for him. It would not stop his parents’ souls from unraveling.

If medicine could not fix them, he would turn to the heavens. 

Maybe that was how it was supposed to be. Perhaps, they were to grovel at the feet of divinity and pray. As they always had. 

If so, the gods were disgustingly cruel. To rip away the carefully crafted salvation, only to provide a far costlier one…Harry shuddered. 

A soft moan, muffled and muted, sounded from _their_ room. Weaker than before, a desperate, desolate sound.

He wondered if the gods were laughing.

* * *

There were few gods that would aid a human and even fewer that would save a human’s life.

The forest's god, the patron of life and all things holy, Silvatus. How he knew its name he would not know. He didn't really think it mattered either. The gods played with human minds often. What did it matter if some nymph pranked him?

Harry knew he was the most amicable of the elder gods, knew he would humor a mortal.

But even then, who was to say he would help? What could he possibly give that could convince Silvatus that Harry was worthy of help?

Your body, his mind hissed, the gods are nothing, if not lustful. 

The gods had always demanded sacrifice. They had demanded crops and riches and time. Upon their altars, innocence died. 

If innocence was the price he paid, who would care? He was one among the many, crawling on his knees, blind and lost in darkness. And upon his knees his prayers turned to screams, the gods uncaring as always.

Yes, the gods had always demanded sacrifice.

* * *

In his dreams, he was someone else. Another boy, so similar to him. Tall and broad and handsome, everything Harry was and more. A perfect shadow born of serpents and ambition.

The question of why he dreamt of this boy was always present, lurking under his flesh and twisting in his bones. The boy’s name clawed at him. Not the name given at birth, but the chosen name, the _true_ name.

But a name couldn’t answer his questions.

He wasn’t a seer and nobody dreamed of other people’s lives. Was it escapism then? Was he truly so desperate to forget the daily happenings? Maybe, just maybe, he was dreaming of a past life. A time where he had not been held back by anything.

A life where he felt at home within his own flesh and took pride in his blood. A time where he took hold of the future and had a higher purpose. Greatness had been in his blood once; and as diluted as it was now, it still pumped through him.

Even if it was not his life, he knew. He had killed gods once.

He would not let arrogance stand in the way of the only thing that mattered. He couldn’t allow them to die. Even if he was unsure just who he was trying to save now.

It was pride that had led Tom to death. It would not be a surprise if it did so again.

* * *

There were whispers of the men who had slain gods. Of the unholy heathens, the heroes who dared to strike at the heavens. Men who had been put to death, extinguished in a second. As if they were merely dust in the wind. If they were truly so powerless, then death was all they deserved. 

But those were the men the winds spoke of, even here in the forest. Why killing deities was so impressive to people, he would never know.

Gods could be put to death as easily as men could. 

Was it the rush of murder, of ending the existence of their creators? 

Or perhaps, it was destroying the very things they were made in the image of. If man had been fashioned in the style of gods, they would understand the joys of cruelty better than any creature.

It was by Apollo's hand Icarus had died.

But he knew better than to speak. If he desired life, he would be pious and pure in his dutiful deference. To the gods, and only the gods he would bow his neck, as unworthy as they were.

But _this_ , what was it?

What this beast before him? What was this once proud stag, now lichen covered and skinless and rotting, here for? It had to have shown its fleshless face, its graying skull, to a mere mortal for a reason.

But Tom could not decipher why, he was lost in the carcass of the forest's god. He was lost in pine needle eyes and matted black fur.

This creature was a tragedy given flesh and bone.

"Have you come to mock me as well," it rasped its carnage to air and winter. Its voice was as deep as the ocean it lived so near to. "Little mortal?"

The roots in the earth came forward, and the forest trembled. Ancient wood creaked and cracked, divine judgement, as unjust and draconian as Del Rath’s mandate. But Tom's tongue was sweet poison, and gods were nothing if not vain.

 

"No, my lord. I come with no ill will." the lie left saccharine on his tongue, sickly sugar clinging to his lips. " I swear it. I am your loyal servant." 

 

"Do you know what it is like to be trapped within your own corpse?" its eyes bored into him, searching for something to give him away. It would find nothing. "Do you?"

"No, my lord." he spoke softly, as if the confession would be carried away by the salty winds and disintegrate with the shells. "And I am glad I have not."

"I hate how this body tries to scream, fearful of all that it is." there was a sort of intensity in its carnal croak, one that Tom refused to think on.“I hate how my flesh tries to flee from my bones."

And what was he to say to such things? Any consolation would ring empty. Sympathy was not and never be a part of him. Nothing could draw it from him. No man. No monster. No god.

Especially one as _pitiful_ as this.

"It has been so," its words were a slow gurgle, slick with death and liquefied organs. "Lonely here."

"I have been so lonely here," past all hideousness, a sort of vulnerability lay. "Perhaps, you would be willing to stay." it spoke as if its voice was molasses, sweet and slow and sensuous.

Surely he was mistaken. 

"If only for a while." 

No God would feel such petty emotions.

“My lor-”  


Yet, it bleed into beckoning tones.

Lust.

As craven and filthy as ever. A parasite, much like the worms wriggling in the beast's body. As every parasite did, it hungered. It hungered for flesh and nourishment and touch. 

And who was he to to stand in the face of hunger and spit?

“Silvatus, child.” The beast spoke as if he was a prized pupil, a well behaved _child_.“I am Silvatus.”

“Silvatus, I,” and as all gods did, it coveted innocence. So he would be coy, the image of purity. His face filled with the flush of inexperience, as if he did not know hedonism. “I will stay.”

* * *

Harry was not sure what this creature was. It was no longer the beast he saw in dreams. No longer the hungering monster he-- _Tom_ \-- knew intimately. 

And that made all the difference.

The sting in his chest was best left forgotten. A ghost of emotion inspired by pine needle eyes and a greying skull. 

“Do not look at me so _boy_. Do not look at me as if I am a beast.” Harry wondered, only for a moment, if that was what Silvatus felt when he met Tom.

“I was human once,” bitterness tinged each word, every syllable was laced with ice. It did not suit _his_ voice. “I was flesh and blood instead of magic and ichor.”

“I looked very similar to you.” It was more a fact than a confession. Silvatus too had held a mortal form, as most gods did.

“Silvatu-” why he said that name he did not know. He didn’t want to know either. He didn’t want to know why some small part of him was screaming.

“I am not Silvatus, little fool.” it was spoken with such force. As if it did not want to even think of Silvatus. 

“I am Lord Voldemort.” There was a fury, a burning need to make him understand in those words.

Not that it was needed.

Harry knew that name. It lurked in his blood and screamed in his bones and writhed within his veins. It was a name that called to him, beckoning him to a future that was not his.

“You wish to save your family, do you not?” Voldemort’s voice held no inflection. As if this was completely unimportant to it.

Harry's jaw clenched, trying desperately to contain himself. Insolence would destroy his chances, he had to remember that. 

“Then you will obey me.” for some reason, Harry had not expected to be given an ultimatum.

“You’ll fix my family if I do,” he would not, could not agree, until he had some sort of assurance. “Right?”

“I will,” it spoke brazenly, as if life was not precious. “Fix your family under one condition."

“What do you want,” the words caught in his throat, a bitterness clinging to his mouth. “My lord?”

“ You will complete a very simple task. One simple enough that any mortal could complete it.” There was no tenderness to be found. Only harshness and a resolution he did not want to understand.

Harry’s retort was silenced before it ever began.

“Do not speak. For once, you will listen.” Harry scowled at Voldemort, ignoring the strange familiarity the words held. “You will make me whole again.”

* * *

“You wish for immortality, child?” it should not have felt right to hear his desires spoken aloud by _it._

And yet it did.

“Yes, my lor-” he would indulge, only this once and never again. “I mean, yes, Silvatus.” its name was unfamiliar on his tongue. And if he found it sweet, who was to know?

He could not forget himself.

It pressed its cold skull against him, an affection he would feed upon. And if he found solace in hi— _its_ cool touches, what did it matter? 

It would change nothing. 

“Perhaps,” Tom had come much too far to let go. Concern could stop him now. “You should not do this.”

“Please,” Tom felt like he was praying. “Just tell me.”

“Fine then.” it sighed, and if Tom allowed himself to see, he might have thought it fond.“Who am I to say no to you?”

“My child, all you need to do is follow my every instruction.”

This should not have felt like a goodbye, like this would be the last time they would speak.

“Thank you, my lord. I am forever in your debt.” 

This should not have left him wary. There was nothing to fear.

“You will not be in my debt, sweet child.” its tones were far too tender. “If anything, I should be grateful to you.”

But tones should not have affected him.

“You needn’t be so kind, my lord.” Tom didn’t want such kindness.

“Hush, you need only listen.” a gentle reprimand, almost too gentle. He did not want _it_ to talk to him as if he was precious. He didn’t know if he could bear it. “You will only need to complete a simple task. One that will only take minutes.”

“May I ask what it is, my lord?” his words came stumbling out of his mouth, desperate to be heard.

A sort of sorrow, something regretful, weighed down its words. “You will make me whole again.”


End file.
